


Downpour

by Kelinswriter



Series: Valentine (Universe Three) [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Sanvers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21878641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kelinswriter/pseuds/Kelinswriter
Summary: Alex ignores the weather report, because Alex is Alex.ForDamnDanvers. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it, and that you have the happiest of holidays.
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer
Series: Valentine (Universe Three) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635244
Comments: 20
Kudos: 118
Collections: Secret Sanvers | A Sanvers Winter Holiday 2019 Event





	Downpour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [damndanvers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/damndanvers/gifts).



Everyone had been saying it was going to pour all day. 

It started with the weather report when Alex first woke up. “Cloudy this morning, winds increasing throughout the day, and then we have a doozy of a temperature drop coming, and with it, a big storm off the Pacific. So if you’re walking or biking to work, you might want to head home a little early!”

“You want me to give you a ride in?” Maggie asked, her voice still groggy. She yawned and slid her hand beneath the covers, finding Alex’s arm in the gray morning light. “I’m on shift till six, but if it’s too bad to walk you could just take an Uber home.”

“No, I might need the bike this afternoon.” Alex curled onto her side and scooted over so her head was no longer resting on her own pillow, but Maggie’s. She tucked her leg between Maggie’s knees and leaned in for a kiss. “I might need to do reconnaissance on a bad guy doing bad things.”

“Thinking the giant black SUV would be a little too obvious?” Maggie teased.

“Maybe just a little.” Alex lifted her hand and brushed a strand of tangled black hair away from Maggie’s face. She felt soft skin under her fingertips, tiny laugh lines, and then a dimple erupted beneath the pad of her thumb. She pushed into it and smiled, laughing her way into another kiss. “Good morning, Mrs. Danvers.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Sawyer.” Maggie kissed her back, not just once but many times, each caress of her lips slower and sweeter than the last. She let out a regretful grumble as she pulled away. “As much as I’d love to spend an hour doing this with you…”

“Yeah, me too.” Still, Alex couldn’t resist pressing her thigh upward, if only to hear Maggie let out a little gasp when it reached its destination. “So, tonight?”

“Rude.” Maggie swatted Alex’s hip, and Alex felt the sting resonate throughout her body in ways that were going to stick with her all day. She was trying to figure out just how exactly she was going to cope with this when Maggie gave her a sly look. “I suppose we could save some water and shower together.”

“For the environment, of course,” Alex said.

Maggie grinned her way into yet another lazy kiss. “Of course.”

\---

So anyway, about that rain. 

The warnings about this storm had been dire, and as soon as Alex drove her bike out of the parking garage beneath their building she could see why. The clouds were low on the western horizon, their color a uniform gray that seemed to be getting darker with every passing minute. The tops of the coastal mountains were already covered, and Alex had a feeling by the time the day was over the rest of them would be lost to that wall of gray mist.

She was right.

She headed out for her recon late in the afternoon. She’d changed out of her uniform and into the clothes she’d worn to work — black jeans and shirt, and the brown jacket with the hoodie that she’d pilfered from Maggie’s side of the closet. Maggie had made a face at her when she’d walked out the door, but since she was wearing one of Alex’s shirts beneath her own jacket, she hadn’t had grounds to complain. But after two hours of riding around behind a couple of ex-Cadmus henchmen who were probably dealing in stolen tech, Alex knew that choosing today to engage in wardrobe theft had been a mistake.

Because the mist was getting heavier, and Maggie’s jacket was soaked. The soft leather was getting stiffer and heavier by the minute, its dull surface slick and shiny with moisture. Alex had been keeping it zipped all the way to the collar, but she could still feel water starting to seep in, first through the gap at her neck, and then through the teeth of the zipper. Her jeans were soaked too, and the feel of the heavy denim clinging to her made her skin crawl. She knew what that was about: wearing wet clothes would always bring up the memory of that day in the tank, no matter how much time she spent in therapy. But there was no point in dwelling on it, and so she gritted her teeth and tugged up her boots and hoped that these assholes would get on with whatever bullshit they were cooking up so she could call in Supergirl and get home to her wife.

Then it started to pour. 

This wasn’t just raindrops, but sheets of rain, literal buckets of it, as if someone had opened a portal to another world and dropped one of its oceans onto her head. Within minutes, the sewers were backed up and the streets became rivers of brown water. The cars still daring to brave the roads shot up sprays of foam like boats plowing through waves, leaving eddying flows of water in their wake. 

It wasn’t feasible to stay on her stake out. In fact, it wasn’t feasible to do much of anything but try to get home as fast as she could manage. Home was, after all, marginally closer than the DEO. So Alex started driving.

And driving.

And driving.

It took her two hours. Two hours of dodging accidents and puddles the size of small ponds and pedestrians ignoring crosswalks and traffic lights in a desperate race to get to shelter. Two hours of rain running down her neck and leaking in through the seams of the visor on her helmet and pooling in her boots. Two hours of cars back-splashing into her face and fighting to keep her bike from spinning out.

She did try, at one point, to stop and call for a ride. But the storm, she would learn later, had messed up cell phone signal for half the city, so her plan to call Maggie or Kara or J’onn or hell, even Brainy for a rescue was washed away. She had to slog it out, hoping that she could, by some miracle, find a way to get home before it got dark and the roads began to grow slick or even ice over.

It sucked. Every single minute of it sucked.

The rain had finally begun to slacken a bit when she turned in to her building’s parking garage. There was a giant puddle across the entrance, and she had to maneuver her bike along a narrow strip of still-dry pavement to get it down the ramp. She pulled in to the narrow gap between Maggie’s Charger and the Triumph that her Ducati shared space with and tried, as best she could, to peel herself off the soaking wet seat. 

It took a while. 

The shivers started when she got into the elevator, and again, she couldn’t help but think about the last time she had been as cold and soaked as she was now, and how this elevator had been the start of that. But mostly she was just pissed off and miserable, and even more so when she realized, as she got to the apartment door, that her keys were wedged so deep in her sodden front pocket that she couldn’t get them out.

“Oh, fuck you,” she muttered as she struggled to jam her fingers between two layers of completely soaked denim. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck —“

“Babe?” The door opened, and there was Maggie, barefoot and in gray sweats and an oversized NCPD hoodie, a vision of light and warmth after the hell of a far-too-gloomy day. Maggie looked her up and down, her brow furrowing with worry. “Jesus Christ, Danvers. What the hell happened to you?”

“I should have let you give me a ride to work,” Alex said, and slammed her wet helmet down on the table next to Maggie’s. 

“You think?” Alex walked into the apartment, shedding her jacket, and Maggie backed away. “Wow, you’re soaked and, by the way, if you ruined that jacket —“

“Babe, please.” Alex let it drop to the floor and put out her hand. “Just, not now.”

“Sorry.” Maggie gestured toward the bathroom. “Go take off your wet clothes and get in the shower while I warm up your dinner.” 

“You made dinner?” Alex asked, wondering if it was possible that she had actually been blessed with a wife who made her a home-cooked meal after a hard day.

“Well, no, I heated up the leftovers from Kung Pao Palace from two nights ago.” Maggie shrugged an apology. “But I saved you half the orange chicken and two veggie spring rolls.”

“And I love you for it.” Alex walked toward the bathroom, her boots squelching with each step, and then came to a stop as she neared the blissful warmth of the lit fireplace. She paused alongside its heat and was wracked with another bout of shivering.

“Alex, babe, you’re worse than a wet dog right now,” Maggie said, and raced to retrieve a pile of paperwork from the coffee table in front of the couch. The strewn papers had large drops of water all over them, and Alex realized then that they were coming from her. 

“I’m sorry,” she said through chattering teeth. “It’s just…I’m really cold…and…”

“Frozen, I know.” Maggie ducked into the bathroom and swiped a towel off the vanity. She draped it over Alex’s head, and began to rub, gently at first, and then with more vigor. “Even your hair is wet. How did you manage that with your helmet on?”

“I don’t know!” Alex replied. The words came out in a sort of plaintive wail, and she leaned in to Maggie, gripping her arms with both hands. “I’m a mess.”

“Oh, sweet girl.” Maggie drew away the sodden towel and kissed the top of Alex’s head. “Go take a nice, long, hot, not-environmentally friendly shower and put on some warm clothes.”

“And then orange chicken?” Alex mumbled.

“And veggie spring rolls, hotshot.” Maggie kissed her again, on the mouth this time, but Alex noticed that Maggie’s face was the only part of her within easy reach.

“You’re not going to hug me until I get out of these clothes, are you?” Alex asked. 

“Of course not, Danvers,” Maggie said, and grinned. “No one likes hugging a wet dog.”

______

When Alex emerged from a boiling hot shower, she found her favorite gray sweatshirt and pair of Santa-themed flannel pajama pants sitting on the toilet seat. Her thickest pair of winter socks were there too, and Alex quickly sank her still-frozen toes into their warmth. She pulled on the rest of her clothes and slicked a comb through her hair, then walked into the living room. Maggie was sitting on the couch, legs curled beneath her, the case file she’d been working on when Alex came in still clutched in her hand. She was studying it with fierce concentration, and Alex just watched for a moment, enjoying the firelight flickering across the strong planes of her wife’s face. Maggie pulled the pages she was holding apart, looking at each back to front, then side-by-side, and worried at her lower lip with her top teeth. 

“Are you detecting?” Alex asked.

“I am.” Maggie turned to look at her, her gaze soft in the warm light. “Your dinner’s in the microwave. Maybe give it another thirty seconds to make sure it’s nice and hot.”

“Thanks.” Alex took a few steps toward the kitchen, then veered sideways to kiss the crown of Maggie’s head. “You’re the best.”

“I am,” Maggie said, more dryly this time, and Alex laughed. She poured a Scotch while she waited for her food to rewarm and returned to the living room, settling in with her back against one arm of the couch and her legs stretched out until her heels were touching Maggie’s hip. 

“Is that the Covington case?” she asked, maneuvering a piece of orange chicken to her mouth with her chopsticks.

“It is.” Maggie didn’t even lift her eyes from the pages in front of her as she reached across the coffee table and handed Alex the remote. “Here. Go for it.” 

“You don’t want the quiet?” Alex asked. She could tell that Maggie was deep inside the evidence right now, that steel trap mind shifting the puzzle pieces around, turning them over and over again until they began to fit and she could see the picture clearly. Watching Maggie when she was close to breaking a case, as she was right now, was far more entertaining than anything Netflix might have to offer. 

Maggie just shrugged. “As long as you don’t start the next episode of _Hill House_ without me, we’re good.”

“You just want to give your full attention to Carla Gugino,” Alex snorted, and nudged Maggie’s thigh with her foot.

“And you don’t?” Maggie grinned, though her eyes still never left the pages in front of her. “Eat your dinner before it gets cold, babe. I’m almost…” She trailed off, her gaze focusing intently on the piece of paper before her. She flipped it over, then looked at the other one, and then, once again, held them alongside each other, lifted upward so they were backlit by the firelight. “Holy shit.”

“What?” Alex asked around another piece of orange chicken.

“Danvers, you’re a genius!” Maggie exclaimed, and then lunged across the couch and planted a passionate kiss against Alex’s mouth. It would have worked better if Alex hadn’t had a mouth full of orange chicken, for instead of falling into the kiss like she wanted, Alex choked on a too large chunk when she swallowed in surprise. She coughed and sputtered, and Maggie, laughing, patted her back. “Oh, shit. Sorry, babe.”

“After the life insurance this early?” Alex wheezed, and Maggie just laughed louder and handed her a glass of water. Alex choked some of it down, waited a minute, and then managed to rasp, “Okay, not that I’m not a genius, but what was that about?”

“Remember when you dripped all over my case files a little while ago?” Maggie asked, and then passed Alex a napkin so she could dab at her chin.

“I do.” Alex tried to take a bite of spring roll. She chewed carefully, swallowed even more carefully, and asked, “Why is me spattering rain water everywhere significant?”

“Well, the big drips you made on two pages highlighted the exact pieces of information I needed to pull this mess together.” Maggie rested her hand on Alex’s knee, absently caressing it with her fingers. “Turns out the answer was right in front of me all along. You just helped me find it.”

“Does that mean I get credit for breaking the case?” Alex asked. 

“No way, babe. This one’s buying me a trip to the sergeant’s exam.” Maggie leaned over and kissed the tip of Alex’s nose. “I have to write up my notes before I lose this, but then _Hill House_?”

“Carla Gugino is ready when you are,” Alex said.

“To Carla,” Maggie said, and then swiped Alex’s Scotch from the table, taking a long sip. “And to my beautiful wife getting stuck in a downpour more often.”

“Don’t even,” Alex glared, and swiped her glass back.

\----------

Alex woke, sometime in the middle of the night, to the realization that she was cold. The last thing she remembered, there was a wedding happening onscreen, and it made her think of when she and Maggie had snuck away from their own reception to have a quickie in Kara’s hotel room.

“How do you expect me to sleep in there, knowing that you were doing it on my bed?” Kara had sputtered when they returned downstairs. 

“Actually, we were doing it against the closet door,” Maggie had replied, and then tucked the key card she’d swiped out of Kara’s purse back into her hand. She straightened her tie and looked over at Alex. “Babe, Winn has them playing emo crap again. Let’s go frighten him into hiding by the cake the rest of the night.”

But chaotic and joyful as it had been, her own wedding was long over, and so, apparently, was the one on the TV. The screen was dark, and only the fireplace, set to low, was putting any light into the room. It wasn’t putting out much warmth, though, for the blanket that had been draped from her toes to her shoulders couldn’t keep out the chill. There was rain spattering on the windows, its steady patter regular as a metronome. And if Alex listened closely, she could hear the soft, steady rise and fall of her wife’s breathing.

She got up and padded to the bathroom to pee and brush her teeth. It was nearly two a.m., she saw as her eyes focused on the clock next to the vanity mirror, which meant she’d been out for four hours. She vaguely recalled Maggie trying to wake her, and then laughing softly and kissing her forehead before tucking the blanket tighter around her body. It’s not like Maggie wanted her to sleep on the couch, which was, on its best days, serviceable at best compared to their big, soft bed, but Maggie hadn’t had much choice but to leave her there. After all, Maggie couldn’t sweep her up in her arms and carry her to bed, whispering to her softly when she grumbled about being moved. Not the way Alex could when the tables were turned.

But Maggie had her own way of making Alex feel protected and loved. And Alex couldn’t help but crave it now.

She flushed the toilet, washed her face, turned the light off, and made her way toward their bed. Maggie was curled on her side, facing the middle of the bed, her hair splayed out behind her in a messy tangle. One hand was curled near her face, her pose one of innocent stillness, and Alex thought of what her wife must have been like as a child when she nestled in her bed on snowy Nebraska nights. She wanted to stand there and watch forever, but she also really wanted to have Maggie wrapped up in her arms, and so she pulled down the covers and slid toward the center of the bed, tucking Maggie’s body into her own.

“Your feet are cold,” Maggie mumbled into the pillow.

“I have socks on,” Alex said, and rubbed her sock clad toes against Maggie’s bare ones.

“Still cold.” Maggie reached her hand across to catch at Alex’s hip and tug her closer. “C’mere.”

Her hand slid under the waistband of Alex’s sweatshirt, and Alex yelped at the cold feel of fingers against her skin. “You’re like ice,” she whispered, for it seemed sinful, somehow, to disturb the stillness of their darkened home. “How are you like ice when you’ve been snuggled up in bed?”

“Because I didn’t have you to snuggle with.” Maggie burrowed deeper into the pillow. “Also, I love you.”

“I love you,” Alex said, and kissed Maggie’s forehead. “Even if your hands are fucking freezing.”

“I know where I could put them to warm…” Maggie said, and then didn’t finish the sentence. 

“That fast?” Alex asked, and Maggie let out a soft grumble. “You really fall back asleep that fast?”

“Candy corn made of magnesium,” Maggie said, and then fell silent.

“That sounds disgusting.” Alex leaned in, kissing Maggie’s hair, and then pulled her close, holding her limp, rag-doll body like the precious cargo it was. “I can’t wait to see what kind of weird ass candy you come up with for Christmas.”

\-------------

Alex woke to gray morning light, and a strange absence of sound.

She heard the usual noises upon wakefulness: The rustle of sheets, her throat working as she swallowed a mouthful of built-up saliva, the pop as her trick knee reset itself when she stretched. She yawned, blinked, opened her eyes, and waited for the morning sounds she should be hearing: the radio, the coffee maker, the traffic outside.

But there was nothing. Just that pervasive and yet vaguely comforting silence.

She sat up, reaching for the weapon in the drawer of her bedside table, and saw that the balcony door was open. Its curtain billowed, and there was air coming in: cold air, and lots of it, by the way the gooseflesh suddenly broke out all over her arms. She’d stripped down to a t-shirt sometime in the night, because Maggie could veer from cold as a popsicle to warm and snuggly as a sleepy cat in about five seconds flat, but now she reached for her sweatshirt, pulling it over her head as quietly as she could. Then, slowly, she pulled her weapon from the drawer, trying her best to not make any sound.

Her training did the rest. She slid out of bed, her sock-clad feet hitting the carpet soundlessly, and crept through the kitchen, using every trick J’onn had taught her about keeping her senses on alert. 

And promptly banged into one of the kitchen chairs with her shin.

Pain flooded through her leg, and she hopped around, muttering “Shit” in as low a voice as she could muster, until the intruder — who, as it turned out, was no intruder at all — called out to her from the balcony. 

“Alex, stop creeping around like you’re doing a covert op and get out here.”

“So much for stealth,” Alex muttered, and set her weapon on the kitchen counter. She walked toward the balcony door, bracing herself against a blast of cold air, and then sucked in a startled breath.

Sometime in the night, the rain had turned to snow — not just a few flurries, but the kind of thick, deep snow that National City simply did not get. There was at least five inches of it, if the pile on the balcony railing was accurate. 

“You’ll want shoes,” Maggie called out, and Alex reversed course to retrieve her running shoes from the rack by the door. She pulled them on and walked to the balcony, lingering inside for a moment. She wanted to really absorb the sight of Maggie, rumpled and stunning in her sweats and hoodie, looking out in wonder at the unexpected winter scape.

Maggie turned her head. “Can you believe it?” she asked, and Alex saw that little girl from Nebraska again, her eyes lit up in wonder at winter’s first snowfall.

“I can believe in the meteorological phenomenon, but not in what it’s produced,” Alex said, and stepped carefully onto the snow-covered balcony. She was worried it would be slick, but the snow was thick and crunchy and anchored her foot well. She took another step and wrapped her arms around Maggie’s waist. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” Maggie slid her hands down until they rested atop Alex’s. “And you thought my hands were cold last night.”

“You’re definitely not warming them up until you warm them up,” Alex joked, and then ducked around to kiss Maggie’s cheek. “I know it’s possible for it to snow like this in National City, but I never thought I’d see it.”

“Me either.” Maggie turned her head, her lips finding Alex’s jaw, and eased her weight back until they were wrapped entirely in each other. “Weather said the storm off the Pacific stalled against a slow-moving front over the mountains. This is the result.”

Alex looked around at the gray-shrouded city, though the clouds were still so low that she couldn’t see the tops of several of the skyscrapers. The parts that were visible were powdered with a fine layer of snow, while the streets and sidewalks below seemed well covered in it. One of National City’s few snowplows was hard at work trying to clear the street below so that traffic could more easily get through, though by morning rush hour standards, there wasn’t much.

“Let me guess,” Alex said. “The city is basically shut down because they can’t get the roads clear?”

“So it seems.” Maggie threaded her fingers through Alex’s, her right thumb tracing over Alex’s knuckles, with a brief pause to caress the thin strip of skin where, had Alex taken the time to put them on, her engagement and wedding rings would be. “I still have to go in, though not until later. Cap is having night shift pull a double since they can’t get out of the parking lot and so much of the squad can’t get in. So I’ll be on two to midnight.”

“That last part sucks, but at least it means I have you to myself this morning.” Alex teased her fingertips along the waistband of Maggie’s sweats. “Care to help me warm up my hands?”

Maggie caught Alex’s hand before it could slide lower, and at first Alex couldn’t figure out why. Then she heard a whoosh and saw a familiar streak of blue and red gliding toward them. She moved her hand back to Maggie’s waist and felt a blush stain her cheeks.

“Hey, guys!” Kara said, hovering in front of them some ten feet off the end of their balcony. She was grinning, of course, and the joy on her face was enough to make Alex crack a smile. “Can you believe it?”

“No,” Maggie said.

“Yes,” Alex said, at the same time.

Kara’s eyes sparkled. “It’s so cool. I mean, look at this!” 

She flipped onto her back, her arms and legs waving in the still-falling snow. She was, Alex realized, making a snow angel.

“Oh my God, she’s such a dork,” Alex whispered in Maggie’s ear.

Maggie snorted, and then reached for a handful of snow, packing it tight between her hands. 

“Maggie,” Alex said in warning. “I don’t think that’s…”

The snowball smacked Kara clean on the side of her face. She flailed, her arms and legs churning wildly before she popped upright, shaking her head. A giant chunk of snow still clung to her temple. “Maggie!”

“What?” Maggie asked, trying to hide her smirk. “It was Alex, I swear.”

Alex, saying nothing, simply pinched Maggie in the ass.

Maggie jolted, and Kara narrowed her eyes. “I think I’m going to get out of here before you two start doing things that totally freak me out.”

“Probably a good idea.” Alex glanced pointedly at the balconies on either side of their apartment, knowing there were likely watching eyes all around. “See you later, Supergirl. And…” She lowered her voice to a whisper, one that only Maggie and Kara could hear. “Tell Brainy I’ll be in around two.”

“Ew,” Kara mouthed, and then gave a firm Supergirl nod. “See you later!”

She lifted one arm and shot straight up in the air, her giddy cry echoing off the surrounding buildings as she disappeared into the clouds.

“A nerd, just like her sister,” Maggie said.

“But not nearly as sexy a nerd as her sister,” Alex replied, and caught Maggie’s earlobe with her teeth. She felt Maggie squirm against her and smiled, her arms automatically tightening around Maggie’s waist.

“What do you say we go warm up your hands,” Maggie murmured, once again threading their fingers together.

“I say I should probably get caught in a downpour more often,” Alex said, and smiled, and then drew her wife inside.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to [ViviWrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViviWrites/pseuds/ViviWrites) for the inspiration. Her gorgeous fanart called [One Foot of Snow](https://www.viancapachecoart.com/artwork) was the starting point for this. I hope my words did it justice.


End file.
